EDIT: Seems this is a VERY unpopular ideal. Another idea is to nerf individual players BEFORE a match starts if the matchamaking balance is too far off.

THIS IS A TEMPORARY SUGGESTION FOR CASUAL MODE UNTIL MATCHAMAKING BALANCE IS FIXED

I think we've all had games where there was a player on the other team who was SO GOOD and - usually in conjunction with a very good team build - is nearly impossible to kill, and ends up with a HUGE number of eliminations. (I saw a video on youtube where an Androxus had like 71 eliminations to only 4 deaths or something ridonculous like that.)

Could there be a way to nerf that player in game?

Maybe as their k/d ratio grows, the hit box for that player shrinks? Or their rate of fire decreases? Or the damage per shot gets reduced? Or their max health gets reduced? or their movement speed is reduced? Or their reload speed is increased?

I think we all understand that there are limits that matchmaking can achieve in terms of balancing a team. Maybe something like dynamic, individual nerfs in game would help make balancing more granular.

I don't know. I find that games that end 4/3 (or where we lose 3/4) are always the most rewarding - much more so than games that end either 4/0 or 0/4. And in casual when you are going up against a well-organized party / team... well, I think some dynamic in-game balancing would really make the game more fun for everyone.

RogueRifler

11-05-2016, 12:18 PM

Having game mechanics that harm players for playing well is a bad design. You get to the point where players realize that dieing at a certain point would not impact winning but would significantly reduce the debuffs on themselves. An easy example is wiping 4 members on the other team and then letting the fifth one kill you. A game that encourages these broken behaviors is silly. Instead what we need is good matchmaking so this situation doesn't happen in the first place.

RitchBascist

11-05-2016, 12:34 PM

Punish players for playing well.

https://media.giphy.com/media/nMymIiyU55IM8/giphy.gif

Roster

11-05-2016, 01:42 PM

the answer will be always no.

CoolDude

11-05-2016, 02:58 PM

Instead what we need is good matchmaking so this situation doesn't happen in the first place.
While I agree with you that would be a great / optimal solution, is it really feasible without having excessively long queue times?

CoolDude

11-05-2016, 03:02 PM

Punish players for playing well.

Don't think of it as "punishing" players for playing well. Think of it as making it more challenging for players who play well :-)

If you can't get past thinking of it as "punishing", then, that is fine. But let me ask this; is it really that wrong to "punish" someone who goes 74 and 4 (eliminations to deaths) or something like that in a casual game?

And come to think of it, doesn't Paladins already TRY to punish people for playing well by using the match-making system to put ringers on teams with weaker players? After all, one man's "balance" is another man's "punish," isn't it?

CoolDude

11-05-2016, 03:03 PM

the answer will be always no.
Why not?

(This forum requires me to make my posts at least 10 characters long so I am using this sentence as filler.)

RogueRifler

11-05-2016, 03:06 PM

While I agree with you that would be a great / optimal solution, is it really feasible without having excessively long queue times?

Yes, Paladins has a pretty large community 40-50k concurrent players. I am fairly new, but I don't think that there is such a skill discrepancy between players that it would be unlikely to group players in decent match ups. Another major change will be when voice communication comes to Paladins. That should help arbitrary randoms adapt to each other.

Akirin

11-05-2016, 03:51 PM

If someone is destroying your team duel with him. You will die but that's how you improve your skill. Learn from people better than you, get your ass kicked a thousand times, that's the only way to face that kind of players. You can call it "challenging for players who play well", but no, it's punish them.

RitchBascist

11-06-2016, 01:39 AM

I'd rather not have a 'Blue Shell' mechanic brought to this game.

SilentSorrow

11-06-2016, 07:46 AM

Or you could just learn to get better. Punishing someone for doing well will never fly in my books. Granted, the matchmaking should be putting players together will relatively the same skill, so if there is something to improve on, it's that.

ActiveekVisser

11-06-2016, 09:53 AM

Just learn2play dude

ThatOthell159

11-06-2016, 01:48 PM

Punishing players for playing well..

Lol.

No.

KicksBrickster

11-06-2016, 03:03 PM

So basically, if I do really well in a match, it gets harder for me to do well, and thus easier for the other team to beat my team because I'm doing better than they are. Yeah... no.

Punishing a good player (and yes, this is punishment) for playing well is a horrible idea. It caters to those who don't bother to learn, cos the players who do will be the ones getting hit with the nerfs. Burn cards are the in-match balance, we don't need something crazy like this, and it would definitely chase away a large portion of the older players.

Instead of throwing me down to their level, why don't they learn enough to reach mine? Easy solution.

CoolDude

11-06-2016, 03:25 PM

Granted, the matchmaking should be putting players together will relatively the same skill, so if there is something to improve on, it's that.
How about this: offer two choices for players who are playing casual and have a high level:

1) Better matchamking, which would require a longer queue time since there are less players at an elite level, or...

2) In-gmae nerf, which means you could play against lower level players in casual but you will get nerfed / sandbagged.

So when a player with a certain K/D history or level decides to play in casual, they are given these two options.

CoolDude

11-06-2016, 03:34 PM

...we don't need something crazy like this, and it would definitely chase away a large portion of the older players.
It MIGHT chase away the older players from playing casual, but maybe it would encourage them to more often play competitive?

Also, if older players are aware of it first, would they really be THAT upset if instead of ending up 70 eliminations, 4 deaths, 30 solo kills, they ended up 50 eliminations, 10 deaths, 18 solo kills?

Also, won't really good players get TIRED of playing against a team that they can kill at will? I mean, certainly it has to get kind of boring if every game they play is 4-0?

And really, how is what I am saying all that different from the people who say, "HiRez really needs to nerf Victor / Kinessa / Skye / Evie / Cassie / Makoa..."???

I don't think that the particular champions need a nerf, because if you watch enough gameplay videos, you can see that pretty much ANY champion can dominate a game, as long as the person playing them is good.

CoolDude

11-06-2016, 03:40 PM

Learn from people better than you, get your ass kicked a thousand times, that's the only way to face that kind of players.
My concern is more for the people who are newer to paladins now that it is open beta and who get their butts handed to them on a platter and decide to leave the game.

Also, I have been on the WINNING side of enough 4-0 games to feel that it would be a lot better if we didn't have that Androxus / Kinessa / Buck / Victor / Whoever that was carrying the team.

I would much rather win 4-3 than win 4-0

CoolDude

11-06-2016, 03:49 PM

Instead of throwing me down to their level, why don't they learn enough to reach mine? Easy solution.
I am sure they would LIKE to reach your level, but I am afraid it is probably not quite as easy as you imply.

Again, this would be for CASUAL only. Maybe now that it is in open beta, there could be two levels of casual (beginner, and advanced), or something else?

CoolDude

11-07-2016, 09:58 AM

As mentioned above in my edit, another idea is for CASUAL mode, give the ringers a nerf at the beginning of the game, if the team balance is not particularly good. (I am sure HiRez will come up with an algorithim defining what a not very good balance would be.)

Maybe that nerf could wear off over time during the match?

The bad part of this is that suppose someone is a ringer playing Kinessa, and they want want to play Drogoz for the first time or something. Then they would have that start-of-game nerf applied to them due to their performance as Kiinessa, even though they may suck at Drogoz.

FenexDragonis

11-08-2016, 01:31 AM

look we can bitch and complain about matchmaking all we want but, hi-rez is never going to actually fix it... why? because its a marketing tool... think about it, who do you think are spending the most money on this game... why the idiots, well if the matchmaking system was reasonable, those idiots would loose way more games than they would win, which then leads to them getting upset and quitting the game entirely, then hi-rez loses money.. matchmaking is not intended to make balanced games it intended to make sure the demographic who blindly throws money at the game keeps playing.. The fact that it alienates the average/casual player doesn't matter, why? because though they would spend money too, there not just going to blindly throw it at them.. radiant chests are a great example of this..

asking hi-rez to fix matchmaking is basically asking them to Spend time and resources to fix a problem, that would alienate their primary source of income, what im saying is your asking them to spend money to alienate their primary source of income.

they can and will tweak matchmaking, but when the problem exists at its very core and would require an entirely new system to be built, as well as many other factors that contribute to the problem to be addressed.. its just not going to ever happen, the most we will ever get is "we tweaked matchmaking".. which will always result in one of three things... #1 matchmaking getting worse #2 if previous tweak made matchmaking worse this one will only bring it back to what it was pryor to that tweak #3 absolutely nothing...

basically they are going to do as little as possible to matchmaking... when enough people complain about it, they just say "hey we tweaked matchmaking" just to make you think they are actually trying... eventually it will get to the point where hi-rez says "okay its not a violation of forum rules to talk about matchmaking" .. kind like what they with posts about hackers.. where there starting the "pretend it doesnt exist" game..... i might be mistaken but from what ive been told, on the smite fourms and reddit its now punishable to bring up matchmaking... and if thats true it will eventually happen here too..

you can look at the match statics search the worst player you can think of... note their win loss ratio which will almost never be below 45%

do the same thing with some of the best players which will be around 50-55%... notice anything strange? like such a small gap in win loss ratios between some of the best and some of the worse.. yep thats how hi-rez wants matchmaking to work.. yes there are some players up much higher on the ratios.. but most of them have pubstompped to that point.. and are going basically be forced to play with partys or they will get matched with players that make the ai bots look competent